After traveling around Thailand for a week, my family collectively grew tired of eating Thai food. I thought I loved Thai, embracing papaya salad everyday, but I think the endless buffets (thanks to the pre-booked tours) quickly bored our palates. I never tired of mango & sticky rice though, but it never really occurred to me that Thai cuisine isn’t as diverse as Vietnamese cuisine. SHOTS FIREDDDD. Jaykay. Such a first world problem, right? It wasn’t until flying into Hanoi did I truly appreciate the cuisine of my peoplez. It’s exponentially more diverse than Thai food, especially due to its influence from its colonial French past & its Chinese neighbors. We’ve got similar desserts based in coconut milk & then we have these amazing cakes & pastries thanks to the French. We have dozens of various noodle soups, while Thailand only has a handful. While most other Asian countries embrace soy sauce in nearly every dish, Thai & Viet food is similar in that both cuisines embrace fish sauce, a highly pungent & salty fermented fish sauce. It’s often mixed with sugar, water, salt, & vinegar as a dipping sauce or dressing. Fish sauce (concentrated, not mixed) has always been my mother’s secret weapon in enhancing any meal whether it was spaghetti or Banh Canh Cua. Also, MSG. She used a lot of MSG, but the point is, whenever her meals needed a major kick in umami, she pulled out a bottle of fish sauce & measured out a tablespoon of it into her dish. Never fails.

We were excited to finally get our hands on some Vietnamese food, exciting our tastebuds with new combinations of flavors & spices we grew up with. I learned that Hanoi’s goi cuon tom (aka summer rolls) is made with a much thinner sheet of rice paper & honestly, it’s more annoying to eat & make. I love summer rolls. I make them at least 3 times a month, no matter the season, because it’s so healthy, fresh, filling, & low in calories. While Hanoi’s (Northern Vietnam) cuisine is much lighter than Saigon’s (Southern Vietnam), it still has some of my personal favorite dishes: Bun Cha & Cha Ca Thang Long. See all of our eats & travel photos below!

Cool fun fact: I was going to combine a huge travel dump of photos from Thailand & Vietnam, but decided it’s too overwhelming. Besides, I can break up my trip into 3 different posts, thereby making it seem like I’m suuUUuuper active, but I just scheduled the posts ahead of time. I didn’t realize how many food photos I actually took in Thailand.

So, I was enrolled in an Emergency Medical Services classes at Boston University for a hot minute & since the classes were so long & I have the attention span of Dory in a classroom setting, I finally ended up editing all of my photos from two summers ago (!!!! – I’m the worst) & last October’s trip to Maine. DROPPED that class – too busy with work & other shenanigans. Probably will retake it in the summer when I’m not as busy. Would be fascinating to ride in an ambulance. It’s too bad the experience won’t be anything like Sirens. That show was hilarious, RIP. Anyway, my family & I went on an amazing trip to Thailand & Vietnam for nearly a month. We vacationed first & then volunteered with MEMO to help out our peoplez. Tears were definitely shed & so many of us got food poisoning, but it was all worth it. Literally shed our blood, sweat, & tears helping the underprivileged in Vietnam. You can scroll down to see my travel photos, but otherwise, here’s a massive food photos dump featuring some of the best eats from Thailand & Vietnam!

Okay, time to shut up: IT’S SLOBBERING TIME. I can’t believe I just made a Marvel pun. What is wrong with me. Puns are the worst form of humor. Halp me.

If you’re not already following me on Snapchat, you should (@tiffanybeeee)…if you want to see my food pics as they happen &/or my soaping process. Very seldom I’ll post a selfie, because look, I’m not a psychopath. That’s right. Haven’t you read the study that says if you’re a man & you take a lot of selfies, you’re probably, maybe a psychopath? Yep. So, if your Snap Story is mostly of your face, I’m gonna assume you’re a narcissistic, friendless, jerk psychopath. Or maybe you’re just feeling yourself everyday, who’s to say? I used to have friends I played with on the weekends & now I just “chill”, so my weekend snaps aren’t the UNCE UNCE UNCE they used to be. Welcome to your late 20s, I guess. Anyway, let’s not be a Debbie Downer. There are enough problems in the world happening right now, so let’s take a moment to salivate rather than cry that your life is slowing slipping away from you as wrinkles form underneath your eyes. Speaking of Snapchat, my friend Laura asked me to post this recipe when she saw me snap this, so you can thank her for requesting it. This recipe can either be pescetarian friendly or vegan friendly, depending on whether you use traditional fish sauce (nước chấm) or the vegan “fish sauce”. There’s really nothing too difficult about this recipe & it’s pretty filling if you get yourself a big fat ole eggplant, but you can use Chinese eggplants if you prefer.

One of the most physically annoying things about aging is not the wrinkles & fine lines visibly showing–get on those anti-aging serums, stay out of the sun, use sunblock, moisturize daily, get ahold of some Asian genes, etc–but that agonizing pain in the back of your mandible. You know the pain I’m talking about, right? That jerk wisdom tooth who’s popping up to say, “hey gurl, sup?” & your response is, “BYE FELICIA, DISAPPEAR.” That pain. Yeahhhh, so since I can only pop so many pills of Motrin before I destroy my liver & overdose, all my food choices have been solely categorized under, “can I feed this to a baby?” and “cannot feed to baby.” Thank goodness for my random craving for cháo (also known as congee or rice porridge) a few weeks ago because it’s so easy to make & I can eat it for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Also, it falls under the, “10/10 can feed this to a baby.” I mean, it’s not exactly healthy to be exclusively eating it because rice is not going to fulfill the essential vitamin spectrum for a healthy body, but look, my mouth hurts to chew so I’m going to choose to slurp on rice porridge. That’s where the versatility comes into play though! Dressing up porridge with your favorite ingredients will help you get over the general boringness that is porridge.

So, I’m the worst & I really thought I’d be able to edit all of those photos from my trip to Thailand & Vietnam last summer during winter break. I got some of it done, just not all of it. I’m ashamed, but I had other priorities such as allowing Civilization V to ruin my life with my friends. Just one more turn, right? Well, that’s over with. I’m back in Boston, which means it’s about high time I get my act together. Despite having a -9000 presence in the blogosphere this past month, I still got to team up with Vegas.com to make a pizza that was inspired by one of their many hotels. I immediately thought of Paris, only because I really have no idea how I would have time to spray paint neon butterflies & mushrooms to put on a pizza for the Wynn. Since the hotel capitalizes on Parisian culture–or at least what they think is–you’ll easily find French Onion soup & quiche on their menus. This is awkward; I forgot how to blog so I’m just going to cut to the chase: I made a pizza that tastes like the lovechild of a mushroom quiche & French Onion soup. Here’s the part where I make you click a link to stay on my page longer to see my photos. Also, don’t forget to check out resorts in Vegas if you want to spend Spring Break soaking in the heat, day drinking, & pool party life. Wait, that actually sounds really nice right now considering my feet are frozen right now.